Isaac Shepard Winslow Family Papers 1774-1973; bulk: 1820-1900 Guide to the Collection

Table of Contents Collection Summary Biographical Sketch Collection Description Acquisition Information Organization Detailed Description of the Collection Preferred Citation Access Terms

Collection Summary

Biographical Sketch

Isaac Shepard Winslow (1830-1908) was born in Foxboro, Mass. to Isaac Winslow (1790-1871) and Leonora Jones Winslow (1791-1884). After apprenticing in the machine shop of his uncle, Jesse Winslow, Isaac moved to California in the early 1850s. By 1857, he held a claim near Mission Station in the Kansas territory, and became an officer in the Kansas militia during the anti-slavery uprisings in Lawrence. Returning to Massachusetts by 1859, he married Jane “Jennie” Parks (1832-1909), daughter of Asa and Mary Pickering Parks. The couple moved to South Boston where Isaac worked as a marine engineer installing machinery in steamships at Loring Shipyards. In December 1861, Winslow became the chief engineer of the three-masted steamship transport Mississippi, transporting New England troops that served under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler from Boston to Fort Monroe in Virginia and to the Gulf coast. After the war, Winslow worked as chief engineer for a steamship line operating between Boston, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia in the summer, and Boston and Savannah in the winter. He also served as chief engineer on the steamer Ontario during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-1871, conveying arms and ammunition from New York to Havre, France. He worked at sea until 1882, when he moved with his family to Somerville and became an engineer in the rolling mill of American Tube Works. Isaac and Jane were the parents of eight children: Mary Jane Winslow (1859-1938); Edward Hilton Winslow (1862-1910); Augusta Shepard Winslow (1862-1918); Isabel Gilmore Winslow (1865-1955); Francis Parks Winslow (1867-1943); George Robbins Winslow (1871-1953); Caroline Winslow Winter (1873-1940); and Martha Edith Winslow Pettingell (1876-1968).

Collection Description

The Isaac Shepard Winslow family papers date from 1774 to 1973 and are divided into five series: correspondence; legal, financial, and military papers, genealogical papers; printed material; and volumes. The collection centers around Isaac Shepard Winslow, his wife Jane (Jennie) Parks Winslow, his father Isaac Winslow, his uncle Joseph Winslow, and his daughters Mary Jane Winslow and Caroline Winslow Winter. Although the collection contains a few business and personal letters, the bulk of the correspondence was written between members of the Winslow family. Among Isaac Shepard Winslow’s correspondence is an 1857 letter to his uncle Joseph describing the unrest in Lawrence, Kansas, and an 1862 series of letters to his wife describing his service as chief engineer on the U.S. transport steamer Mississippi that ferried the troops of Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler during the Gulf campaign of the Civil War.

Genealogical papers include charts and lists of vital records pertaining to the Winslow, Gilmore, and Jones family, as well as a family genealogy of the ancestors and descendants of Isaac Shepard and Jane Parks Winslow, compiled in 1973. Printed material includes a small set of Boston newspapers, circulars, almanacs, and newspaper clippings. Volumes include the diaries and memorandum books of Joseph Winslow. Although Joseph's diary entries are fairly sparse, they sporadically record local activities, weather, and family events in Foxboro, Mass. from 1837-1878. The day books of Isaac Shepard Winslow record his expenses, hours, wages, and occasional work notes while he served as chief engineer on various commercial steamers during the 1870s, as chief engineer in a rolling mill in Somerville, Mass. in the 1880s, and during his later years. Jane Parks Winslow’s diaries contain entries related to daily life and family activities in Somerville, Mass., particularly for 1882. Other volumes include an 18th century notebook of Pickering family genealogy, a Rock Hill Cemetery (Foxboro, Mass.) record book, and the 1900 diary of Isaac Shepard Winslow’s son-in-law, Charles Frederick Winter.

Acquisition Information

Gift of Naomi K. Rauff, June 2012, in honor of the descendants of Shadrach Winslow, M.D. and in recognition of the First Resistance Chapter of the DAR, and the contributions this ancestor made to the Revolutionary War.

Organization of the Collection

The collection is organized into the following series:

Detailed Description of the Collection

Preferred Citation

Isaac Shepard Winslow family papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.